Deathlands

Rat King

Written By:James Axler - 2000

Synopsis

Raw determination in a hostile new world

FRACTURED REALITY

What was once the United States is now the rad-blasted world of Deathlands... a place that more than lives up to its name. Led by a one-eyed warrior called Ryan Cawdor, a straggling band of survivors roams the nuke-ravaged land, honing their survival skills in a wasteland where danger lurks over the next hill...

Emerging into one of the preDark installations known as redoubts, the group is taken prisoner in a fully functioning army base operating in a parody of life before the blowout. Its occupants are inbred soldiers, a legacy to the lost secrets of the Totality Concept. Led by the man general of an obscene military project, the base has found its last hope in the ragtag bunch, a fate that may be even more horrifying than the hell they have survived.

In the Deathlands nothing is certain... especially the future.

Excerpt

"Back!" Ryan yelled

He ejected the clip and rammed in another from the supply he'd removed from Panner's corpse. It seemed to him that his people were only reacting. To survive, they had to get these soldiers on the run.

"Dad, get down!" Dean shouted as he saw the drum rise from the center of the wag. It looked like a circle of blasters on a rotating wheel, which began to spin rapidly.

Ryan dived as the rotating wheel spit fire. He felt a plucking at his clothes, small objects whistling past his ears and through his hair.

Trank darts.

His last conscious thought was that someone wanted very badly to take them alive.